University researchers have developed a smartphone app to show users how often their mobile software tracks their movements.
The team from Rutgers University said that the their Android tool uses a real-time monitoring system to show exactly when an application pulls locational information and transmits it. The results, they say …

Where is the app for the iPhone

Re: Where is the app for the iPhone

Re: Where is the app for the iPhone

You might want one for your iPhone, but you certainly don't need one.

Settings | Privacy | Location Services shows you which apps you've allowed to slurp your position. And the OS itself monitors on an app by app basis how often they do so, reporting this in the form of various status icons (documented in the settings). You can also enable a status bar icon to be displayed when any location slurping by anything goes on.

So, no app required, and no 'proper phone' that needs an app installed to do this.

Re: Where is the app for the iPhone

The iPhone doesn't need this app because iOS prompts for approval to access location data the first time an action is taken which requires it, thus alerting the user to the context in which it is being requested. Android needs this app because once blanket location permission has been approved during install there is no way to know when it is being hoovered up.

Re: Where is the app for the iPhone

"iOS prompts for approval to access location data the first time an action is taken which requires it, thus alerting the user to the context in which it is being requested"

So did Symbian, back in the days of Series 60 (e.g.) in 3rd edition on the Nokia E71 in 2008. Maybe earlier too (e.g. E65?). (There was a difference between signed/certificated apps and unsigned. I'm ignoring it here).

It seems to be mainly Android that's lost the plot.

Or, maybe, Android itself is OK, and it's the Google-specific PlayStore Services Layer (or whatever it's called), or some other "ease of development" layer in between app and underlying OS? Anyone know for sure?

Re: Where is the app for the iPhone

"You might want one for your iPhone, but you certainly don't need one.

Settings | Privacy | Location Services shows you which apps you've allowed to slurp your position. And the OS itself monitors on an app by app basis how often they do so, reporting this in the form of various status icons (documented in the settings). You can also enable a status bar icon to be displayed when any location slurping by anything goes on.

So, no app required, and no 'proper phone' that needs an app installed to do this."

Already available. People are so stupid. Smart Phones for Dumb People.

iFooled is one for all so hardly surprising. When you buy a tool and not a toy, you will understand this.

XPrivacy

Re: XPrivacy

And not be running the new Android Runtime. It's currently disabled and an option in 4.4, but the next version's expected to have this on by default, breaking the Xposed Framework needed to run XPrivacy.

Slurping up all permissions

Apps such as ZFS Monitor, ConnectBot, WiFi Analyser, Fing etc only ask for the permissions they actually need. None of those mentioned request permission to make phone calls, send/receive SMS, access acounts data etc,, unlike some other apps I could mention which have no need for those permissions but want them anyway.

I will rather spend more time looking for an alternative than allow an app more permission than it needs. Or just install it on my tablet which has no phone/SMS/GPS capabilities in the first place and only gets used at home so WiFi based location data is worth far less.

When I received my 4.3 OS update this was one of the more exciting features of the update.

It was not enabled by default and I had to search the web to find out how to enable it but now I don't have to turn on my Wi-Fi or GPS (and wait) to use an app like Nooley to get highly accurate weather reports.

This will presumably be the default in Kit Kat..

Not mentioned anywhere is this also allows Google to continuously map and refine Wi-Fi station locations, but this does give everybody (as well as advertisers) much improved services with geo-fencing and instant availability by applications which need this.

Of a slightly bigger worry, when trying to track down why my battery life is much shorter; I finally noticed that one app I have which finds nearby vegetarian restaurants had a permission to run when booting the phone and is apparently running at intervals and collecting (and i suppose transmitting,) my location to the app developer even when i don't use it!

The fused location services are overall to the betterment I suppose but I now have multiple reasons to root this phone so I can get control back of the device I *own*!

Re: This is why.... "Listening mode only"...

And, even if off, the radio might be clandestinely working in concert with the accels and gyro/s to refine a holder's movements -- elevation, direction, speed -- to possibly micro-burst the phone's locations.

Airplane mode probably now only serves to stop phones from "bleeding" and "polluting" restricted airwaves. But, for those being hunted or monitored, anyone with special equipment can now use this as yet another way to keep tabs on a phone.

What would happen if I started slipping my phone into a shielded sleeve, just for the hell of it. Of course, if I got into gov buildings that may ask me to turn it on to prove it really is a phone, then, if I were a tracked/monitored person, my location would be updated -- aside from in-building and perimeter cams that likely are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

At some point, a rooted phone will become a RIGHT, and the sooner people wake up and tell the carriers to sod/screw/get off, the soone we collectively might be able to pressure google and the phone manufacturers to ease up on the lock-down. Enforced locking down of and making difficult to root our phones is putting some of us at risk of intrusion or of us bridking our own phones due to elaborately difficult rooting procedures that, while published, my destroy a phone randomly outfitted with commodity chips that our slighly outside of spec. Recal that even any given Dell model is NEVER 100% identical to every last copy in the same product life cycle. Maybe for batches of 10-100 of the same model, but, not ALL 100,000 or 50,000. In 99, and 2003 I found out the hard way when wasting 10+ hours dealing with a failed clone job.

Re: This is why.... "Listening mode only"...

At some point, a rooted phone will become a RIGHT, and the sooner people wake up and tell the carriers to sod/screw/get off, the soone we collectively might be able to pressure google and the phone manufacturers to ease up on the lock-down.

Never happen. One of the parties that want the wide-open door is the government (in the generic, not the specific). They'll always want that access as a matter of course (governmental instinct), and any attempt to get them to sign anything otherwise just results in "ink on a page". After all, who can you turn to above them to keep them in line, given that the government is sovereign and, by definition, in control of its own destiny?

And before you ask why you don't hear the same thing about Apple phones? Bet you that's because they got an insider there years ago and twisted Apple's arm, allowing them to create a more sophisticated snaffer that can't be readily detected by spectrum analysis because it only transmits sideband.

BTW, to whoever mentioned the em-shielded bag, accelerometers and gyros don't need EM to work, so if it gets a fixed via radio (which it'll get at some point because you have to use the phone), then if it's shielded it can still keep track of itself for some time while in the bag, then when you take it out again it can correct for drift before sending.

Re: This is why....

Re: This is why....

iOS doesn't suffer from this problem and doesn't need to implement this technology, which is a sticking plaster over Android's lack of granular permissions management, hopefully due to change. See my and Mike Bell's responses further up.

*Finally* something that actually *helps* protect peoples privacy.

Root your droid then use a security app

One of the many reasons why I use 'LBE Privacy Guard' (or use another if it takes your fancy). If your android is rooted then I recommend this. It patches up the obvious flaws in the android security model by allowing you to deny permissions to apps. This is way better than the standard all or nothing as provided by android. For example if you are a Angry Birds fan then you can prevent it from reading your location.

Sounds a bit adverty but this is a genuine rant against the all or nothing android security model.

As a genuine example there are 5 apps on my phone that want to access my call logs and 17 that want my position. I block 90% of these - why does barcode scanner need access to my call logs?

The feature that I am looking for in future security programs is limited network access. I used to have Flickr installed but that accessed the network a insane number of times per day (every few minutes). I would reinstall it if I could limit it to sync only once per day.